Congress
Congressman Louis T. McFadden, Chairman of the House Committee on Banking and Currency from 1920–31, accused the Federal Reserve of deliberately causing the Great Depression. In several speeches made shortly after he lost the chairmanship of the committee, McFadden claimed that the Federal Reserve was run by Wall Street banks and their affiliated European banking houses.
Many Congressmen who have been involved in the House and Senate Banking and Currency Committees have been open critics of the Federal Reserve, including Chairmen Wright Patman, Henry Reuss, and Henry B. Gonzalez. Congressman Ron Paul, Chairman of the Monetary Policy Subcommittee in 2011, is a staunch opponent of the Federal Reserve System, and routinely introduces bills to abolish the Federal Reserve System, although these have been unsuccessful, garnering neither cosponsors nor hearings.
Ron Paul also introduced H.R. 459: Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2011, which passed the House on July 25, 2012. This act required an audit of the Federal Reserve Board and the twelve regional banks, with particular attention to the valuation of its securities.
Read more about this topic: Criticism Of The Federal Reserve
Famous quotes containing the word congress:
“I date the end of the old republic and the birth of the empire to the invention, in the late thirties, of air conditioning. Before air conditioning, Washington was deserted from mid-June to September.... But after air conditioning and the Second World War arrived, more or less at the same time, Congress sits and sits while the presidents—or at least their staffs—never stop making mischief.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)
“Such is the labor which the American Congress exists to protect,—honest, manly toil,—honest as the day is long,—that makes his bread taste sweet, and keeps society sweet,—which all men respect and have consecrated; one of the sacred band, doing the needful but irksome drudgery.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“When will the men do something besides extend congratulations? I would rather have President Roosevelt say one word to Congress in favor of amending the Constitution to give women the suffrage than to praise me endlessly!”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)